Newswise — Claude Desplan, a professor in NYU’s Department of Biology, and Paula England, a professor in NYU’s Department of Sociology, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Washington, D.C.-based organization announced today.

Desplan and England were among the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates who were elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

NYU now has 36 faculty who are members of the National Academy of Sciences and a total of 51 faculty who have been elected in the organization’s history.

Desplan, a Silver Professor at NYU whose work encompasses both biology and neural science, focuses on the evolution of early embryonic development and the establishment of retinal and brain circuitry that underlies color vision. Desplan received his undergraduate degree from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in St. Cloud, France and a Ph.D. from the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale in Paris.

England, a Silver Professor at NYU whose research centers on gender inequality in the labor market, the family, and sexuality, has authored Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence (Aldine) and Households, Employment, and Gender: A Social, Economic, and Demographic View (Aldine), co-authored with George Farkas, among other publications. England has a bachelor’s degree from Whitman College as well as a masters degree in social sciences and a doctorate in sociology, both from the University of Chicago.

Additional information about the academy and its members is available at www.nasonline.org

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